In February, KidsPeace in Stroudsburg announced it would be ending its acute partial-hospitalization program on May 1, because the agency could no longer afford it. The Route 611 site has continued to offer outpatient services, however.

The partial-hospitalization program was expensive to operate, requiring a high staff to client ratio, KidsPeace officials said.

In addition, the program was hit hard by state funding cuts and many school districts had stopped providing transportation for students enrolled in the program, they said. The cancellation of the program resulted in six layoffs from the Stroudsburg location.

There are 300 children between the ages of 5 and 18 who continue to rely on Stroudsburg's outpatient services. Those services will not be affected by the bankruptcy announcement, said KidsPeace spokeswoman Bevin Theodore on Wednesday.

The bankruptcy filing has not led to layoffs and will not affect services at the 130-year-old organization that provides treatment to roughly 2,000 children in 10 states, according to a KidsPeace spokeswoman.

It was not immediately clear how pensions would fare in the process, but the federal government shields against total loss.

KidsPeace listed nearly $249 million in debts to 30 creditors in a 17-page filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Among them are $111 million in related company debt, $101 million in pension obligations through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., $25 million in bond debt from 1998 borrowing, and $1.3 million owed the New York City Board of Education.